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suraj.sun passes along news from Oregon State University, where researchers have discovered a new strain of bacteria that may be able to aid cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. The bacteria "can produce non-toxic, comparatively inexpensive 'rhamnolipids,' and effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs — environmental pollutants that are one of the most harmful aspects of oil spills. Because of its unique characteristics, this new bacterial strain could be of considerable value in the long-term cleanup of the massive Gulf Coast oil spill, scientists say." In related news, Kevin Costner's centrifugal separator technology has gotten approval for deployment; now it is only waiting on funding from BP.

The bacteria idea sounds great, but will probably result in a new and deadly plague that will give rise to oil gobbling mutants!
As for the other idea, I don't see how Kevin Costner can claim to have developed an oil separator that has been in use by US Navy ships since before the early eighties. We had them on my ship when I was in back in 1983. They were used to separate water and dirt from lube oil.

As for the other idea, I don't see how Kevin Costner can claim to have developed an oil separator that has been in use by US Navy ships since before the early eighties.

I realize this is Slashdot, but if you RTFA you will find that he got his hands on the design and spent $20M or so of his own money on having them improved to the point that they were useful for processing a mess into CLEAN water AND clean OIL. Nowhere is it claimed that he invented the centrifugal separator.

The gulf is blooming with natural oil eating bacteria that already know how to live among the communities and predators there. Indeed there are so many of them eating the oil right now they say it's removing all the oxygen from the water making a deadzone.

You make an excellent point : there's no telling what will happen when you introduce a newly discovered ( and as such , pretty much unknown ) life form into the open sea.However , from past experiences , when we decide to meddle with nature , it usually doesn't end up well for either.

This is a newly discover strain of a very common and widely dispersed bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa [wikipedia.org]. This strain developed naturally in an oil contaminated enviroment, and P. aeruginosa is a well known for eating oil. My hunch is this strain is either already there or will evolve on it's own, if the strain isn't introduced into the GoM by us.

The bacteria idea sounds great, but will probably result in a new and deadly plague that will give rise to oil gobbling mutants!

As for the other idea, I don't see how Kevin Costner can claim to have developed an oil separator that has been in use by US Navy ships since before the early eighties. We had them on my ship when I was in back in 1983. They were used to separate water and dirt from lube oil.

There are natural bacteria that eat oil that have been used before and are very safe, even it wetlands:

It depends on your definition of "safe." You see the bacteria burn oxygen in their metabolic process. Too many of them feeding at once and suddenly there is not enough oxygen to sustain any sort of sizable lifeforms. Already this is happening in the gulf, and considering that at least half of the gulf was already a dead zone due to lack of oxygen, this implies that most of the gulf will become a massive dead zone. Its really hard to say what the long term effects of any of this can be. Also there is always

You're talking about the DeLaval and Sharples centrifugal oil purifiers on Navy ships. We had one on the submarine I was on too, though I can't remember seeing it used much. We ran them in Machinist's Mate A school and learned about their operation. The thing in TFA sounds different, certainly in size, but also perhaps in influent. The Navy units were about the size of an automobile engine and took in mostly pure oil of fairly low viscosity. The Costner units would have to be much larger and take in mostly

Technically, they are required to. Unfortunately, the agency responsible for signing off on their response plans is basically a textbook case of regulatory capture. Thus, companies routinely get away with either ridiculously under-specced contingency plans, or just outright lying about what capabilities they possess. Corruption is cheaper than actual hardware and it isn't as though the US is a very good place to be cast as the "mean evil regulator who hates business, and wants your gas to be expensive"...

Now the real question is why aren't oil companies required to have cleanup response equipment before being allowed to drill? They certainly can afford it. Or if they don't want to keep and maintain such equipment, perhaps the Coast Guard can maintain it under its fleet. Then if anything happens, we'll bill them for the cleanup.

If only the vast federal government had some sort of Agency charged with Environmental Protection! Sadly, Washington being what it is, the EPA only produces paperwork and only protects it's own jobs. I'm fairly libertarian, and I could certainly see tax dollars going for what you suggested! But I don't think government agencies are allowed to do anything useful any more.

They live on in places where gas and/or oil is spilled regularly like in the water close to marinas, on the water in ports, and around oil rigs.

Breaking down carcinogenic spills all around the world? Sounds good.

They get into the suboceanic and other oil supplies and deplete them.

This is a strain of P. aeruginosa, generally an aerobic organism. They can probably not live in anoxic conditions, never mind the pressure they'd be subjected to (do oil drillers use sterile equipment? I think not).

They find one or more hospitable environments where they live off of something other than oil causing possible harm to any number of ecosystems.

You sure they can even survive in seawater? This is a household strain, not some sort of superbug.

Given he quantity of oil that has been released and the volume of the gulf, the only way this could possibly work was if the bacteria in question was able to spread throughout the gulf after being released. Unfortunately, if that is the case then that's really not something you want to introduce to an ecosystem that isn't used to it. The oil is bad, but we know from experience that introducing new organism to already vulnerable ecosystems is generally a bad idea.

This whole thing sounds more and more like Neal Stephenson's Zodiac [amazon.com] as time goes by. And that story included a nuclear option as well (I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it; it's a great book. In fact if Stephenson was too pie in the sky for you before, this is the one to read. It would make a much better movie than the pile of shit that came out which is called "Zodiac", too. Who keeps putting the Gyllenhalls in movies?)

I've been thinking that this entire time. I just read Zodiac a month or two and the parrallels are starting to become pretty amusing:) I'm particularly interested to see how that stuff with the oil dispersents will turn out.

The oil is bad, but we know from experience that introducing new organism to already vulnerable ecosystems is generally a bad idea.

It's actually a slightly different strain of a very common bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa [wikipedia.org], that's better a biodegrading the very toxic PAHs, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [wikipedia.org] because of the Biosurfactant [wikipedia.org] they produce. Many other stains of P. aeruginosa are already there naturally eating up the oil spilled.

I get WHY Kevin Costner is getting so much press with his oil separation machine; it's not like he has to work hard to get a camera in front of his face. But it's not like the separation process is what is causing an environmental disaster; it's all that oil out in the ocean. If Kevin Costner was selling a machine that can suck up cubic miles of water, that would be newsworthy

As I understand it, the interesting part is that the resulting oil is clean enough to be sold and used, which means there's a bigger economic incentive (or less of an economic cost) to clean up the spill.

Let's face it, corporations don't work as hard for a "do it or else" as they do with a "free oil for the taking!".

In another article, BP said they would sell it, but the price would be lower because of the methanol they're injecting to prevent ice buildup.

I fail to see how burning it off is a sound decision if it's saleable. Even if it can't be used for fuel, if there's anything at all that it can be used for it'd be stupid to just waste it to placate people who irrationally want to punish the oil for the disaster.

Nice. New bacteria. I don't have time to go look it up, but somebody else might... I'm under the impression that the whole process of breaking down hydrocarbons eventually leads to a drastic increase in ammonia and related compounds, and severe oxygen depletion. Even (especially?) biological processes. Somebody once posted a nice short progression of the basic chemistry involved in a similar topic here on/. not too long ago.

Ain't nothin' free. Break it down? It has to break down into something...

There are thousands of bacteria on the face of the planet that can break down oil and I bet many of them are in the Gulf itself, right now, which has been seeping oil for what, 100's of millions of years? The problem is not if there are bacteria that can metabolize oil; we already know 100's of ones that do, the question is, will it be more effective than the 1000's already out there?

This is just a press release for a grant writing fishing expedition for BP money. Everyone is doing it right now in academia, trust me.

The REAL reason Kevin Costner waited this long to release this isn't government testing. His arch nemesis, The Deacon (Dennis Hopper), just died, removing the last hurdle by getting the smokers out of the way.

I don't know of any person in the world that has put his/her money so consistently where their mouth is. Costner has spent most of his fortune in developing various environmentally friendly technologies, such as super-fast flywheel energy storage. Honestly, I thought such a altruistic business proposal could never succeed in the world we live in. Maybe I wasn't 100% right.

The development of annular centrifugal contactors began at the National Laboratories more than three decades ago. The first centrifugal contactors were devised at the Savannah River Laboratory (SRL) and, subsequently modified at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to the form known as the annular centrifugal contactor. A reasonably complete description of the technology has been provided in papers by ANL scientists (1–4). The contactors consist of a vertical centrifuge providing for both the mixing and

Depends on how you interpret the assumptions of classical economics. One way is "all people will behave as if they are rationally self interested". Another is "everything else being equal, a system designed with the assumption that all people are rationally self interested is more likely to behave as predicted than one that is not". The former assumption is clearly absurd. The second is quite reasonable, in my opinion.

If you've ever driven through the south eastern US, say along HWY 85 from Georgia to Alabama you can see fields of kudzu [wikipedia.org] that are engulfing whole areas. This stuff grows inches per day and covers trees, cars, telephone poles etc..

As people have already pointed out, introducing a single bacteria in the mass quantity that it would take to actually facilitate improvement would probably end up changing the the entire makeup of the gulf. It could have far reaching effects that we couldn't even predict. To a degree, the sad reality of this situation is that with our limited technology, we are going to have to roll up our sleeves and do this by hand as there is no quick fix. BP is using dispersant chemicals only to avoid pictures of sea an

The fact is that new types of bacteria appear in the ocean all the time. You've been watching too many movies if you're scared of this idea. Fear not, the bacteria will not mutate and infect all life in the sea.

The fact is that new types of bacteria appear in the ocean all the time. You've been watching too many movies if you're scared of this idea. Fear not, the bacteria will not mutate and infect all life in the sea.

Famous last words. I, for one, welcome our new microscopic petrol guzzling overlords!

Apparently that oil well had not previously produced oil for sale, so losing it didn't impact supply at all. From the Wiki page [wikipedia.org]:

The platform commenced drilling in February 2010 at a water depth of approximately 5,000 feet (1,500 m).[11] At the time of the explosion the rig was drilling an exploratory well.[12] The planned well was to be drilled to 18,000 feet (5,500 m) below sea level, and was to be plugged and suspended for subsequent completion as a subsea producer.[11] Production casing was being run and cemented at the time of the accident. Once the cementing was complete, it was due to be tested for integrity and a cement plug set to temporarily abandon the well for later completion as a subsea producer.

Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.

People need to understand that there exists a few products which are absolutely NOT part of free market economies and are not directly driven by supply and demand. Both diamonds and oil are such products. Their prices and supplies are artificially manipulated at every corner. While oil, unlike diamonds, truly are a scarce resource, they are both so heavily manipulated before and after they enter the market, their prices do not reflect reality of market demands - not in the least. If it were any other goods, talk of conspiracy, price fixing, price gouging and lots of serious investigations would be par for the course.

And no, this isn't crazy talk. I encourage you to do some modest investigation for yourself. You'll find lots and lots and lots and lots of completely legitimate sources stating all this.

Did you know if too much gas is produced and/or accidentally scheduled for delivery to the US, its dumped on non-US markets; traditionally south America? We certainly wouldn't want the price of gas to fall. Did you know refinery plants have been shut down but no new refineries have been created? Did you know one of the most cost effective refineries was one of the ones shut down? In fact, it was purchased for the explicit purpose of shutting it down? Following its shutdown, the price of fuel steadily went up stating they were at production limits and no one wants them to create a refinery in their back yard?

The amount of fraud, conspiracy, and market manipulation is so criminal, it makes criminals in awe of how complex and complete the oil industry fucks everyone - without prosecution.

In short, EVERYTHING you learned in economics 101 does NOT apply to oil/diamonds. Period.

Yeah Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly. That's a popular myth but by the time the government stepped-in with trust busting, Standard Oil's competitors had already taken a big chunk of the market. Same with Kmart which used to be the dominant store of the 1970s and 80s..... it too lost its way to new competitors. Another example: Internet Explorer. Once had over 90% of the web share, and now it's fallen to around 60% due to new competition arising.

The stuff you learn in economics 101 (or for that matter any 101 type course), is never a complete picture of what's going on.

Supply and demand as taught in those kinds of courses is the same as the kinds of physics you get taught where everything is functionally behaving in a vacuum, except for some reason people understand that a ball won't behave exactly the way it does in the formulas when you throw it but they presume that the market will.

I completely agree with you. The difference here is, after you learn the world doesn't exist in a vacuum, you still know absolutely nothing about how the economics of oil/diamonds work; at least not based on traditional economics. Excluding products such as those, at least both before and after your "vacuum realization", you had some vague understanding of the economies around you. Which is, after all, entirely the point of why they are taught.

Oil prices are set based on speculative futures. In other words, normally people would say, opps - that means less oil coming to market down the road so the price needs to jump - and it does. Odd that it didn't do what it has always done in this case.

It's not clear to me whether you think this oil spill should affect the price of oil because it is slowing down the speed with which it becomes a useable well, or because the worldwide supply of oil is being reduced by this wastage. If it's the latter, it should be pointed out that the amount of oil lost that would ruin the environment is much less than the amount of oil lost that would make a substantial difference in world supply. if it's the former, than we'd have to know A. when this well was going to

"ZOMG ALL PLANTS SHOULD PRODUCE AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY OR ITS MANIPULATION"

Please get a clue. Everyone makes it very clear that despite modest increases in production capabilities, we are woefully under producing. This in turn is used to justify higher prices. When asked why they don't increase production, they state no one wants a refinery in their back yard. Which is odder since they have shutdown plants and have old plants which could be recycled as an existing site.

And yet, if demand is so high and oil is available (it is), why wouldn't you increase production, especially to a

This well was going to produce at something like 0.1% of U.S. consumption, that is enough to impact prices some, but it isn't enough to send futures into a shitstorm, it is certainly less of an issue than increasing Chinese consumption.

And yet BP was punished some $85 billion. You seem to falsely believe the price of oil is related to actual events. They usually are not. In fact, just about any excuse, no matter how stupid or irrelevant is typically used to drive prices drastically up. That's entirely the point of my previous post.

The price of gasoline is not affected because this spill has no affect whatsoever on the refineries in Texas. They are still collecting oil from Saudi tankers and still pumping out gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and so on.

Also, and this is just personal opinion, I think people that believe in conspiracy theories (9/11 was a planned demolition, etc) are whackjobs. Why believe in outlandish complicated scenarios when the simplest answer is staring you right in the face? Supply-and-demand. That's why prices fluctuate.

Yeah, thinking that that oil conglomerates fix prices is a super nutty conspiracy thinking. I mean, it's not like giant companies like ADM [wikipedia.org] have ever been involved in price fixing with their group of international competitors. Now, I may not be totally up on the matter, because I'm a geek and stick to tech news rather than business news, but I've never heard of price-fixing [wesrch.com] happening in real life [yahoo.com] and not just in conspiracy nutters ramblings.
The whole concept is just crazy. You are a wise man.

You first said worries of price fixing were along the lines of nutter conspiracy theories. When it was pointed out you were entirely wrong, suddenly you said the government would sue and fix everything. No admission you were totally wrong about what is and is not a valid concern vs crazed conspiracy theory.

Now you spout off that if price fixing was happening the government would already be suing the gas cartel. Here's another nugget you don't get. Proving those cases is hard without an

OPEC only generates 30% of the world's supply. So no OPEC doesn't "decide" the price, because they are just one piece of the market. If they charge too much, we have other cheaper options like Russia, Canada, and so on. It's equivalent to if Microsoft turned stupid & started charging $100 for Internet Explorer - people would simply jump ship to a cheaper browser.

If they charge too much without making a couple of phone calls, that's true.

but you forget that there are a limited number of serious oil players in the world. they all have a finite resource they are interested in maximizing the value of.

what possible advantage would it be for them to pump it out as fast as possible at the lowest possible margin when they could simply slow it down a bit and multiply their margin many times over? especially when all it takes is informal agreement not to drop the price too

30% is a lot and there are no other options to fill that 30% void - sure you can ask more from others but they will ask more for it (supply & demand you see) and probably won't be able to fill demand until their prices are on par with those of OPEC. If OPEC decides to charge more, the price of oil will go up. Maybe not 1:1 but definitely noticeable.

There's nothing complicated about learning to fly a jumbo jet and then fly it into a building (times three). That was Osama Bin Laden's plan, and a lot simpler explanation then to believe thousands of demolition engineers wired the buildings with TNT, rented some planes, flew them into buildings, set off the explosives, and nobody saw them do it..... or none of them felt guilty about what they did, and talked.

Only a complete nutter would believe the latter explanation to be true.

I do and I'm not a whack job. Been living here right on the water in Navarre all my life (46years). I have gone through more hurricanes than I can remember and will go through many more. I have 4 acres and lost 150+ trees from one storm alone. You would be amazed how well nature recovers and I have lots of new trees. The man-made stuff is insured so that's easily replaced.This spill is not a natural problem and will seriously impact the ecological balance of the gulf. I'm right on the intercoastal waterway

Perhaps, in the spirit of applying naturally-evolved-oil-eating-bacteria, naturally produced in oceans exposed to oil, to the problem of oil spills; we could apply naturally-evolved-angry-former-fishermen, naturally produced on coasts exposed to oil, to the problem of oil spillers...

It seems quite useful to think the post-fdr era is "current events". And current history, post 1400's. I wonder how I should look on someone whose opinions are offered based on a few years of sound bites. Oh well. I am sure the domestic unions are the direct cause of the bailouts of the speculators, including the foreign speculators.

But on cleanup. To get permission to drill this well BP had to show a capacity to immeadiately deal with 300k barrels of spill a day. So their plan was not real great but i

Still have no clue what you're trying to say. Your thoughts jump randomly without coherence. In paragraph 2 how did you jump from BP's drilling plan to the US Government's cleanup plan, to Obama's pressure, and then British citizens opinions. Huh?

My question was rather simple: The US Government had a plan to deal with oil spills (corral the oil and then set fire to it). Why did the USG not implement the plan immediately? You didn't answer it.

ah well. I do not see where I talked about a "US government cleanup plan" I did talk about some paperwork BP had to file with the feds to demonstrate they could cleanup this sort of thing. So I guess this is a BP plan.

As far as jumping randomly, incoherently, I guess you should go back to your sound bites.

As far as some coast guard plan not being implemented, probably because Obama has left BP in charge. I suspect we would agree this was yet another bad Obama behavior but asking "why" invites more comp

"Debeers is now allowed to operate in the U.S. because they are a price fixing monopolist."
Nope. Although DeBeers is a monopolist as you say, it is now allowed to operate in the US not because of their monopolist status, but because they settled the various lawsuits pending against them in the US, some of them quite longstanding. See Wikipedia article on DeBeers. As a result, it is now possible for DeBeers' employees to come to the US without fear of arrest. Prior to the settlement, if you were a scie

I have to wonder how the price of gasoline hasn't gone up significantly since the news of this story initially broke.

I have to wonder why you think the price of oil would suddenly shoot up. The spill hasn't affected supply, since the leaking well never produced any oil for market. It's certainly made BPs stock price plummet, but honestly, why should this disaster make oil prices rise, and why do we need some big conspiracy to account for the lack of that?So far, right now, the only people who are truly up

He sounds like a knee-jerk Fox News watcher and Rush Limbaugh listener, or owns stock in a company that is forced to comply with environmental regulation. Before the Clean Air act you literally could not drive past a Monsanto plant with your windows rolled down; the air was so toxic it burned your lungs.